. >> if congress does nothing, every family in america will see their income taxes automatically go up on january 1. every family. everybody here, you'll see your taxes go up on january 1. and it's not acceptable to me and i don't think it's acceptable to you for just a handful of republicans in congress to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage simply because they don't want tax rates on upper-income folks to go up. gwen: house speaker john boehner's response, no way. they are, he said, at stalemate. >> the white house spends three weeks trying to develop a proposal, and they send one up here that calls for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, calls for a little -- not even $400 billion in cuts, and they want to have this extra spending that's actually greater than the amount they're willing to cut. i mean, it was not a serious proposal. and so right now we're almost nowhere. gwen: both ends say americans voted for growth and responsibility during the last election, but each apparently is read looking the same message differently. what a surprise. so how much of the policy is about standoff and ho